Please tell me how I can stop binge eating

[Anon_92]

Simply that

I went carnivore.
Meat, fish, cheese, eggs, animal fat.
Eat 2 meals between 12 and 8. Was so full I started to drop one of the meals.

Then last week I had a croissant for breakfast and that led into 5 days of near continous eating of pasties, chips, bread, cake, crisps, ice cream etc.

Got back on it yesterday and now have to go cold turkey again but once its out of my system again, it will work. Keto, Ghrelin/Leptin, lower blood glucose, inflammation leaving my body. I just need to get back where I was and stick with it and I'll probably be ok on one good meal a day.

But I started to wonder what I would think about as I wasn't all consumed with thinking about what I was going to eat next then after that.

Carnivore, high protein, highish fat worked for me.

My sister suffered with orthorexia (as a teen) and binge eating through young adulthood. So for me I’ll think “I fancy some chocolate” and I’ll go and have some chocolate, and I’ll enjoy that chocolate, don’t really think about it any more than that. She thinks “I fancy some chocolate” then spends ages agonising “I shouldn’t have chocolate, chocolate is unhealthy, chocolate is too sugary, chocolate is too many calories…” then gives in and allows herself some chocolate but because she feels too guilty about eating it she shovels it in without really tasting it then feels bad for having eaten it but still hasn’t had the dopamine her body was craving so eats more then feels really guilty and thinks fuck it and eats the whole pack. Then feels shit about herself and spends the rest of the day (week sometimes) thinking about all the chocolate she’s eaten which then leads to her wanting more chocolate/biscuits/cake…

She’s much better now, she had a kind of personal trainer for a while but he focused on body positivity and mental health rather than trying to get fit. He’d say stuff like “if you drop one glass and smash it you’re not going to smash every glass in the house are you” or “if your child makes a mistake are you going to spend all day berating them for it?” and worked a lot on building a positive relationship with food and exercise. She used to do loads of crunches and press ups but he stopped those because she was doing them purely for the desired end result rather than enjoyment and now she does boxercise and yoga because she enjoys them. He got her to record her food while they worked together and did lots of stuff on “why are you eating that, what’s your reason for eating that? How much do you like this food on a scale of 1-10? What did you really want to eat? How did you feel after eating that?” and encouraged her to eat food she liked rather than food she thought she should be eating. She hated him for it at the time!

Two things that really help her are planning for snacks in her day (but not planning what because that can be too restrictive and lead to obsessing) and making sure she enjoys everything she eats, slowing down and actually tasting and enjoying the food. It’s not been easy for her to get past the feelings of guilt but she’s much better now and eats chocolate/cake/bread etc without it constantly going round and round in her head.

The usual things like eating more protein/ reducing carbs etc didn’t work for her because it wasn’t about hunger or feeling full or about how nourished or satiated she was, for her it was very much a mental health thing.

Good luck OP, it’s really not easy.

As children we learn to associate food, especially sweets and chocolate, with comfort. A child lives in the moment so doesn't think about long term consequences - they are unhappy about something which results in being given some chocolate or a biscuit and that stops them being unhappy.

That early learning is very powerful, which is why as adults we reach for external comfort when we're sad or anxious or feeling overwhelmed; food will never let you down.

It would help you to think about short term gratification vs long term happiness. When you feel like bingeing remind yourself how you will feel a hour later and ask yourself "Is it really worth it? Is there anything else that will make me feel better instead?"

What else is going on in your life?

You can try the approach which encourages you to binge on 'healthier' foods, of course you can. And it would probably provide an improvement in your overall health.

It doesn't however do anything to help your self esteem and keeps you stuck in the binge cycle.

The surprising solution which helped me develop a healthy relationship with food was to discover that I didn't need to boost my self esteem in order to stop me binging. Instead, learning to feel the urge to binge, to accept that urge and not act on it, was what boosted my self esteem, because I really was treating myself well as I deserve to be treated by myself. And, of course, showed my the way to stop binging.

Not easy, but very, very simple.

Have a look at Gillian Riley's work https://gillianriley.com

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